Prominent in the center of this vast chamber was the stone of sacrifice, and caldron, which told plainly its use to immolate human beings, for stains of blood flecked here and there the whiteness of the surrounding stones.
Acashee paused in front of this ghastly object, and seemed to feast her eyes in contemplation of that which so well harmonized with her own cruel and vindictive feelings. Intent upon her long work of vengeance, devoid of all those gentler emotions which lend a grace to the sex, while at the same time they present a barrier to great achievement, she stood with a half-smile upon her lips as if already she beheld the object of her wrath impaled upon the bloody altar, and sent shrieking to the throne of the appeased deities. At length she turned away, and paced slowly up and down the dim area, which gave out no echo to her restless feet.
Here had for ages been performed those religious rites, so secretly hidden, that to this day we are left in doubt whether or not the northern Indians offered human beings upon the altar of sacrifice. Here were deposited the skulls of great chiefs who had perished in battle, or been tortured by their enemies, and had died as became brave men.
Skins of serpents and reptiles dried in the sun, bones and ivory, vases of terra-cotta, thorns steeped in blood, polished stones and crystals of vast size, were arranged in a niche beneath a stupendous arch; and here, couched in crystal, extending fold beyond fold, dry from the dust of centuries, but vivid with the hues of life, was one of those gigantic lizards, (sauræ,) which might have crept in here before the deluge, and here slept undisturbed, an object of superstitious awe to these devotees of nature.
The grotto of the Pejipscot was not so broad at the entrance as might have been anticipated, but it extended back to a vast distance, widening laterally till it became a gorgeous labyrinth, rising arch beyond arch, spreading itself into interminable vistas, and assuming unexpected shapes of resplendent grace and beauty—columns from which hung the most delicate tracery; pendents reflecting every prismatic hue; vails of network, as if the fairy fingers of the frost had been arrested in their play, and their work rendered eternal in the adamantine stone: as if a thousand gnomes of the mine had here collected their treasury, and here wrought a thousand fantastic shapes into forms of beauty.
It was midday, and the sun, penetrating the sheet of the falls, cast a not uncheerful light into the cave, the size and gloom of which were still further relieved by a fire burning in the center, and one or more torches stuck in the fissures of the rocks. With her back to the fire stood Acashee, gazing intently upon the white, liquid, and tumultuous mass which constituted the door or curtain to this strange habitation. A fierce, cold expression rested upon her face, and the last few weeks of toil and suffering had done the work of years in planting furrows upon her brow.
At one side of the cave, stretched upon skins of a delicate texture, as if prepared to do great honor to whomsoever should apply them to use, appeared what might have been mistaken for a white vail, excepting that a draft of air caused a portion of it to rise and fall, spreading the filaments, and showing it to be a mass of human hair.
So still was the recumbent figure, so motionless the tiny, moccasined foot just perceptible, and so ghostly the hue and abundance of the covering, that all suggested an image of death—a draping for the tomb.
Acashee turned sharply around and surveyed the figure long and silently, a malignant smile growing upon her features. At length she asked:
“How much longer will you sleep, skake (snake)? Get up, I tell thee!”